Antoine shalhat
Many Israeli analysts, especially those who specialize in dissecting Israeli-American relations, found in some recent incidents signs of a divergence in the positions of the two countries regarding the war of genocide and mass destruction in the Gaza Strip, which entered its fifth month less than a week ago. This disparity relates, mainly, to the conduct of the war and its expected trends on the one hand, and the path related to what is described as the “day after” of the war on the other.
According to what was published and published in the Israeli and American media, Washington wants to advance a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas that includes a long truce that may result in a permanent ceasefire, as well as according to what Thomas Friedman revealed in the New York Times (1/2/2024), the administration of US President Joe Biden is adopting a new approach he describes as a doctrine that involves a plan that includes a strong push towards the establishment of a demilitarised but immediately viable Palestinian state, which in his opinion is a tendency that did not exist in the past. This approach also includes strengthening US relations with Saudi Arabia along with normalizing relations between the latter and Israel and maintaining a tough military stance against Iran and its so-called proxies in the Middle East. Friedman noted that the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, appears to be forcing the Biden administration to rethink, primarily, the Middle East. In his reading, if this administration manages to achieve what he referred to, which is huge, the Biden doctrine could become “the largest strategic reorganization in the region since the 1979 Camp David Treaty between Israel and Egypt.”
So far, it appears, Israel has not been decided in response to these American desires.
The discrepancy between Israel and the United States in particular emerged in the wake of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s tour of the Middle East last week and included Israel. It was also confirmed by most of the reports that outlined the last phone conversation between Biden and Netanyahu that took place yesterday, Sunday (11/2/2024).
For example, Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul in New York, noted that Blinken’s tour revealed the widening gaps between the U.S. and Israel, and more importantly, the U.S. administration’s lack of confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (“Haaretz, 9/2/2024). BNCAS expressed his belief that the mistrust he refers to was most prominent in Blinken’s unprecedented request in all history of relations between the two countries for a single bilateral meeting with the IDF Chief of General Staff, General Herzi Halevi. It is a request that Netanyahu rejected in totality on the pretext that Israel is not a “banana republic.”
As for Professor Eitan Ghalboa, one of the most prominent Israeli academics specializing in Israeli-American relations, he stressed that Blinken’s visit to Israel revealed the existence of cracks in military, political, and diplomatic coordination between the two sides, part of which stems from the wrong policy of Netanyahu, who “is more concerned with his political survival than with the security and political interests of Israel,” as he put it (“Marif”, 8/2/2024).
On the biography of Netanyahu and the whole file of relations with the United States now and in the future, Nad Tamir, a former Israeli diplomat and executive director of the J Street organization in Israel, believes that Israeli citizens and their polling trends are the least of interest to Netanyahu right now, as he has in mind “one audience of only 6 people”: Itamar Ben Ghavir (head of the Otzma Yehudit party), Betsel Smotrich (head of the “Religious Zionist” party), Arye Deri (head of the Shas Party), Moshe Gaffni (head of the Yehut-Htorah Jewish Party), Isaac Goldknov (head of the Agudat Israel Party), and Donald Trump. According to Tamir, Netanyahu needs two main things at the moment: first, having politicians in the government coalition who allow him to continue to take office, and second, that the winner of the US presidential election, next November, is nice to him (“Maariv, 8/2/2024).
The conclusion reached by Tamir was that Netanyahu is interested in the ambiguity and procrastination that, even if they distanced voters from him, are bringing Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who do not want to leave the Gaza Strip and have no plan for civilian Palestinian control in the Strip. For them, what would happen if the soldiers continued to be killed without a clear goal of the fighting, what if the kidnapped remained in captivity, and what if the Israeli economy, in need of oxygen, remained without the promised American billions? “The important thing is that the partners in Israel, and those we flirt with in the United States, are satisfied.” Netanyahu also understood, according to Tamir, that his status in public opinion polls had not changed fundamentally, and realized that he had no reason, or personal political interest, in holding a general election at a time when his term witnessed the biggest disaster in Israel’s history, so the only card still in his sever was Trump’s return to the White House.
Perhaps what Tamir says is an explanation of Secretary Ben-Gvir’s sharp criticism, in the context of an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, of the Biden administration’s handling of the war in the Gaza Strip, accusing it of benefitting Hamas, and noting that Israel would be in a better position with a second term for Donald Trump.
This is also what Professor Ghalboaa, who wrote, believes: Netanyahu also seems to want to gain time and remain in office until Trump wins the nearby election, at which point the two will return to the golden age of their relations, which prevailed during Trump’s first presidential term (“Maariv”, 4/2/2024).
In Ghalboa’s view, Ben Ghafir’s statements are segreant and irresponsible and would serve what he describes as “extremist actors” in the Democratic Party, especially young progressives who pressure Biden to stop his support for Israel, including military support, stressing that such a cessation of aid “would be a disaster for Israel’s security.”
At the same time, he points out that since the creation of Israel until now, Israeli leaders have not interfered in the US elections, except in the US presidential election in 1968, when Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel’s ambassador to Washington, supported Republican candidate Richard Nixon against his Democratic opponent. He added that the “unique relations” that had emerged between the United States and Israel were largely based on bipartisan support, both Democratic and Republican, within Congress for Israel, within the framework of what he called “bipartisan.” Israel’s favoring of one candidate at the expense of the other would hurt this bilateral support, so Israeli leaders have refrained from doing so. He also noted that Netanyahu, throughout the last three election rounds in the United States, broke the rules of neutrality in this election, gave his support to Republican candidates, shattered bilateral support, and caused discord with the American Jewish community, the vast majority of which votes for Democratic Party candidates. In the 2012 election, Netanyahu supported the Republican Mitt Romney against Barack Obama, and in both the 2016 and 2020 elections he supported Trump. Now Ben Ghafir continues to follow this destructive policy of Netanyahu, which would cause great harm to Israel, especially at this stage when Israel is the most attached to the United States militarily, politically, and diplomatically.
It should also be noted that Ben Gvir’s statements about Biden and Trump brought back to the forefront of attention the issue of discord with the Jewish community in the United States, which has deepened more and more under the term of Netanyahu’s governments, and the senior leaders of this community expressed their anger at Netanyahu in particular, because he is responsible for the transformation of a figure like Ben Gvir into a main figure representing Israel. “Netanyahu’s name will be recorded in the history books, besides his responsibility for the October 7 disaster, as the one who strengthened Ben Ghafir, the racist who poisoned Israel’s relations with the international community, destabilizing vital American support for Israel, and embarrassing U.S. Jews,” Eric Yove, who was the head of the reformist movement, said in remarks to the Maariv newspaper. Ben Gvir is a disgrace to Zionism, and he represents a real threat to Israel’s existence. Netanyahu should have toppled him a long time ago” (8/2/2024).
In following what Netanyahu’s horns are circulating concerning relations with the United States, there is a measure of criticism of the US State Department’s behavior with a major justification being its lack of correct reading of the developments and developments in the Middle East and among the Palestinians. This is what former Israeli Ambassador Yoram Attinger, who is marketed by the Israeli media as an expert on Israeli-American relations and a member of the “National Leaders Forum,” for example, would emphasize. He finally wrote that in 2024, the US State Department continues to make systematic errors similar to the mistake of its categorical opposition to the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 and stresses the need to establish a Palestinian state that will work in its discretion with the principle of peaceful coexistence. In his opinion, “the United States Department of State underestimates the behavior and vision of the Palestinians and based its policy on Palestinian diplomatic statements and optimistic future scenarios, but only hypothetical and speculative” (“Marif”, 8/2/2024).
Antoine Shalhat is Palestinian writer and researcher, and a scholar of Israeli studies.
This research was originally published by Madar Center in Arabic. The English translation is courtesy of Apple services.